YAY! And Gazpacho!

Ahahahahaha! I published! It worked!

Oh, happy, happy. Might start trying to get Wordpress up and running in case this occurs again.

Okay, because I love you, and because I'm sadly at the end of my monster batch of gazpacho, I am going to share my recipe with you.

Gazpacho, if you haven't had it, is a cold tomato soup the Italians love in summer. Fantastic on a hot day, it was heaven after bike rides this week. I thought it was all right the first time I had it, but this time I love it.

As with all my recipes, I have changed a few things to make it my own, like fewer tomatoes, more kick, and a little something extra. You'd be surprised how much some of the kids loved it when I taught cooking camp last year.

Steff's Gazpacho

Puree & set aside:
7 large ripe tomatoes (remove the skins via the boiling water method)

Chop to a fine chop in a food processor:
1 large red onion
1 long English cucumber
2 jalapeno peppers, seeded and chopped small for safety's sake :)
1 large green pepper, seeded
3 large cloves of garlic, minced

Add the chopped veggies to the pureed tomatoes. You can, of course, do a more rustic large and chunky chop of the veggies, but I'm a fan of how all these flavours really mix together this way.

Add 1/3 cup each of good olive oil and red wine vinegar, and also 1 cup Mott's tomato juice (not tomato sauce!!) or as much as you want to get it to a consistency you approve of, and mix well. Add 1/2 cup chopped basil OR cilantro OR flat-leaf parsley. Sea salt it and pepper 'er up with lots of fresh cracked goodness.

Mix, and yer set! My batch kept for five days in my uber-cold fridge.

That said, it tastes best when you let it get closer to room temp, 'cos the flavours wake up a bit. Good stuff.

***

In the bad news:

Having hand problems. New, troubling. Not good. Acupuncturist tells me to lay off the bike a few days. I'll lay off till Sunday and will try changing my seat position to see if I can destress my wrist.

Now, to stop typing so much. Sigh.